Judy: Fans of Taylor Swift
hoping to score tickets to her
upcoming tour have met a
confusing and chaotic system,
prompting outrage from fans and
lawmakers alike.
John yang has more.
>> ♪♪ Now we've got bad blood ♪♪ ♪♪
John: A mega-tour by mega-star
Taylor Swift is stirring up bad
blood between the singer's fans
and the company behind the show.
Back on tour for the first time
in five years, swift is selling
out stadiums across the country
for her "Eras" show.
But that didn't make it easier
for fans trying to score
tickets.
>> Come on, we gotta go, 13
minutes.
John: Posting their experience
online, hopeful swifties flooded
ticketmaster for presale seats
only to meet extensive wait
times, steep fees, and glitches.
The site itself froze more than
once as the queue numbered in
the thousands.
>> We are talking $750 a ticket
for down here.
John: Ticketmaster blamed
historically unprecedented
demand and urged patients.
-- Patience.
But critics saw a different
issue, the 2010 merger between
ticketmaster and live nation,
that combined venues, artist
management and ticketing under a
single, powerful company.
Last month, president Biden
promised to crack down on
surprise charges for concert
tickets and other purchases.
Pres. Biden: They benefit big
corporations, not consumers, not
working families.
And that changes now.
John: And yesterday lawmakers
including representative
Alexandria ocasio-cortez called
for additional action.
>> -- She wrote on Twitter
"Ticketmaster is a monopoly.
It's merger with with livenation
should never have been approved.
Break them up.
>> I did not get tickets to see
Taylor.
John: Heartbroken fans who found
sold out shows on ticketmaster
turned to resale sites and were
outraged again.
>> Tickets in the sections that
I was trying to get tickets for
are now on stubhub being resold
for thousands of dollars.
John: Swifties aren't the first
to face this problem.
In 1994, even before the live
nation merger, rock band pearl
jam sued the justice department
accusing ticketmaster of
monopolizing ticket sales. The
case was dismissed.
This all follows the release of
swift's 10th studio album
"Midnight."
A tour spotlighting the prices
and vices of the music industry.
Singles like "Antihero" drawing
attention to antitrust law.
We reached out to ticketmaster
for comment, but did not hear
back in time for the broadcast.
Diana moss is president of the
American antitrust institute,
which advocates for greater
enforcement of antitrust laws.
Thank you for joining us.
Explain your argument, draw the
line for us from your
perspective from that live
nation ticketmaster merger in
2010, to the experience that
Taylor Swift fans were having
this weekend.
Diana: Thanks, John.
Absolutely.
The merger is now 12 years old.
That merger created an enormous
monopoly, with a wingspan that
covers everything from artist
management to concert promotion,
to venue managemenen to
ticketing.
When you put a firm together
that has that kind of market
power, the exercise of that
market power, whether it be
through threats to concert
venues if they don't take
ticketmaster as their platform,
or whether it is high ticket
fees to consumers, we are seeing
all of that market power and the
Taylor Swift incident, much like
the Springsteen incident, was
symptomatic of how powerful this
800 pound gorilla is.
John: Ticketmaster points out
the Taylor Swift tour is not
being promoted by live nation.
It is being promoted by a
competitor.
.
What do you say to that?
Diana: Think that is important
to realize that Taylor Swift
herself has a lot of market
power.
All we ever hear about are the
big artists like the
Springsteen's and the swift's,
close have a -- those artists
have a lot of bargaining power.
We should be more worried about
the smaller artists, the smaller
bands that don't have that
bargaining power who have to
deal with live nation
ticketmaster.
They don't have many choices in
the marketplace.
They are forced into this
relationship, and suffer as a
result of it.
John: Does that shape or warp
the live content market industry
and affect smaller groups?
Diana: I think it does.
When we look at the harms from
the monopoly that life mate --
live nation ticketmaster has, we
have to look at everything from
the artist end of the spectrum,
all the way through those
smaller businesses that struggle
to survive in artist management,
concert promotion, the smaller
venues, all the way down to the
consumer end.
I think when we take that big
picture view, we see how harmful
the lack of competition is in
this place.
That affects innovation in the
music industry, and it also
affects innovation in consumer
facing markets.
For example, this experience
with the crashing of the
ticketmaster platform, if we had
more competition, we would have
multiple platforms duking it out
in a competitive market to
provide excellent quality of
service to fans.
John: What role do the resale
sites like stubhub and
ticketmaster have its own retail
-- resale site, what role do
they play?
Diana: The resale markets are
really critically important.
They give fans a chance who
can't attend their events for
whatever reason, to go resale --
resell their tickets.
Other fans get their hands on
tickets.
It is a really efficient way for
markets to work.
What ticketmaster has done is
leverage its monopoly.
And market power into the resale
markets.
And they have very restrictive
policies that affect how well
those resale markets work.
For example, something called
holdbacks, where they only
release small amounts of tickets
at a time, and prices spike when
they go on sale.
Transferability of tickets is a
problem.
That restricts the ability of
the secondary markets to
function properly.
Ticketmaster's policies invade
the resale Morris -- resale
market and affect competition.
John: When the Obama justice
department approved this merger,
they put restrictions on it,
they said there was a consent
decree that they had operated
under.
Is there enough oversight to
make sure they are not violating
their agreement?
Diana: That is hard stuff to
monitor.
Monitoring from the outside how
a company is doing its business,
whether they are violating the
conditions is really difficult.
When the justice department came
in a couple years ago and
extended those ineffective
conditions, that was a real
failure of antitrust
enforcement.
What we need is stronger
antitrust enforcement in the
space to create the compass and
that the murder -- that the
merger wiped out.
John: Diana moss, thank you very
much.
Diana: Thank you.